The Sound of Broken Glass

by Deborah Crombie

  “Worth a try. Any luck with your guitarist?”

  “He’s not my guitarist.” Melody gave Gemma an odd look. “But I did talk to him. He says he didn’t know Arnott. Arnott gave him a dressing down over the punch-up with a drunk punter. Then he says he played another set and his manager took him home.”

  “Did you double-check with the manager?” Gemma asked.

  “In the flesh. He was at the studio as well. Odd little chap. He confirms Andy’s—the guitarist’s—story. Neither of them recollect seeing Arnott after the incident.”

  “A dead end, then?” asked Gemma.

  “Maybe.” Melody frowned and shook her head. “The thing is, I could swear the guitarist was lying about something. I’m just not sure what it was.”

  Doug Cullen stood on Putney Reach, staring out at the gray expanse of the Thames below Putney Bridge. Not even the hardiest of scullers was to be seen on the river today, and he couldn’t blame them. It was only his restlessness that had driven him out for a walk.

  He and Melody had been planning their DIY project—painting his dining and sitting rooms—for weeks, and he was disappointed by her absence. Not that he didn’t understand—the job was the job, and a murder inquiry always took precedence.

  But still, nothing these last few months had turned out quite the way he’d imagined. Not that he’d expected to like working on Superintendent Slater’s team while Duncan was on family leave, but he’d never dreamed they’d stick him with doing data entry. It was a murder team, for God’s sake, and he was a detective sergeant, an experienced officer. When he’d complained, Slater had told him he was “making a valuable contribution,” with a smirk that let him know his new boss meant his assignment to be demeaning.

  None of the team had welcomed him, and he’d begun to sense something at the Yard—an atmosphere, a feeling that people were whispering behind his back. He could put it all down to paranoia, except that he so seldom saw Chief Superintendent Childs, who was Duncan’s direct superior as well as Superintendent Slater’s. Not that Childs had ever been one for fraternizing, but one had always known he was there, and now somehow his large presence seemed to have diminished.

  With his fingers and toes numb from the cold, Doug glanced at the sky and realized he’d only a few hours left of the pale winter light. If he was going to paint in the best conditions, he’d better buck up and get at it. He didn’t need Melody’s help, he told himself firmly—he was perfectly capable of doing a bit of DIY on his own.

  Walking the short distance home briskly, he surveyed his preparations. He had already covered the few bits of furniture Melody had helped him pick out for the sitting room. Now he arranged a canvas cloth over the floor in the center of the room and placed his ladder atop it. Opening the cream paint, he stirred it, then placed the tin on the ladder shelf. Brush in hand, he climbed carefully up, cursing the Victorians and their ten-foot ceilings. It had seemed sensible to start at the plaster rosette surrounding the chandelier and work his way outward, but he found that he had made a slight miscalculation in the positioning of the ladder. Still, he could reach the rosette if he stretched.

  Doug dipped his brush, wiped the excess on the edge of the paint tin, and began. This wasn’t so bad, he told himself, as the work went quickly and half the rosette was soon finished. Maybe this was just what he needed, a little instant gratification to counter the frustration of the job. He leaned out a bit farther, certain he could reach the other side of the plasterwork without moving the ladder.

  And then the ladder lurched. He swung his arm, trying to counterbalance, and the paint tin went flying. It seemed to topple in slow motion, the rich cream paint drifting out in a perfect fan. Doug watched it in an instant’s frozen fascination, then time clattered back with a rush and he realized that he, too, was falling.

  When Melody and Gemma reached the Arnotts’ house again, a Toyota sedan that Melody recognized as belonging to DC Marie Daeley, the family liaison officer, was parked behind Melody’s Clio.

  “Good. Reinforcements,” said Gemma, and Melody knew she hadn’t been looking forward to dealing with Mrs. Arnott on her own.

  When they rang the bell, it was Daeley who answered. The detective constable was in her forties, with neat, graying hair, sensible clothes, and a brisk take-charge manner that usually seemed more comforting to the bereaved than outright sympathy. She was also a sharp officer who could be depended upon to inform the murder team of anything she learned that might be pertinent to their investigation.

  The house smelled of coffee and seemed indefinably more welcoming than it had that morning.

  “She’s next door,” Daeley told them as they came into the hall. “With the neighbor. Thank God for a sensible woman.” Marie Daeley, it appeared, had found a kindred spirit in Mrs. Bates. “We’ve rung the sister in Florida, Sara Bishop. She’s trying to arrange a flight for tomorrow, but even if she can manage, she won’t arrive until Monday.”

  “How’s Mrs. Arnott holding up?” Gemma asked as they followed Daeley into the kitchen.

  Daeley poured them coffee, and Melody was glad of the cup to warm her hands.

  “She’s very confused, and it’s obviously more than just the shock,” answered Daeley, leaning against the worktop and sipping from her own mug. “I don’t know how the husband managed as long as he did.” She waved a hand in a gesture that took in the kitchen and surrounding rooms. “There are little lists and notes for her everywhere. He was a barrister, according to Mrs. Bates?”

  “So it seems. We’ll be contacting his chambers as soon as possible.”

  “It must have been difficult for him when he was in court,” mused Daeley. “He had her routines all worked out for her, and he rang her at regular times during the day. According to Mrs. Bates, he was very patient with her, but he must have known he couldn’t go on much longer.”

  “Why such determination to keep her at home?” Melody asked, trying to meld the devoted husband with the man who picked up women on a regular basis—and who had shouted at a guitarist in a pub without any apparent provocation. “Was it concern for her, or was he ashamed of his wife’s illness? I’d be curious about how much his colleagues knew.”

  “He might have had financial motives as well,” suggested Gemma. “I imagine care in a good facility would have cost him a pretty penny.”

  “I’ve had a quick look at the computer in his office,” said Daeley, “but all the accounts, including the financials, are password encrypted. The tech team should be round shortly to take it into the lab.”

  Gemma took her cup to the sink and rinsed it. “Thanks for that, Marie. We needed a boost. Anything else we should take note of?”

  Daeley gave a little snort. “Not unless you count color-coordinated wardrobes for them both. Oh, and there’s not a single medication anywhere in the house, not even aspirin or paracetamol. I suspect he couldn’t be sure what his wife might take if she was left unsupervised.”

  “Right, then,” said Gemma. “We’d better have a look, just in case. Melody, up or down?”

  “I’ll take down, thanks very much.” Melody didn’t relish the idea of going through the couple’s bedrooms. House searches always made her uncomfortable. She had learned to guard her own privacy so fiercely that the invasion of someone else’s was jarring. And in this case, considering the couple’s domestic arrangements, more than a little creepy.

  She finished her own coffee, and as Gemma climbed the stairs, Melody left Marie in the kitchen and began working her way methodically through the rooms on the ground floor.

  The formal parlor and dining rooms were scrupulously clean, and excruciatingly dull. The furniture, the drapes, the china and crystal in the dining room cabinet, all of good quality and chosen, she thought, to impress, with no spark of either imagination or real appreciation. Doug’s cheap and cheerful little house in Putney beat this one by a—

  “Shit,” she said aloud, brought up short. She glanced at her watch. Doug. She should have rung him. Well, s
he’d take a minute when they were through here, and at least let him know that tomorrow didn’t look promising for their painting project, either.

  She went towards the back of the house, into a less formal sitting room, with chairs that at least looked comfortable and a large-screen television. A typed and laminated list of channels lay beside the remote on an end table, and a magazine rack held a few recent women’s magazines that looked unread.

  There was another room, on the opposite side of the television room from the kitchen, and when she glanced in, she saw that it was obviously Arnott’s study. There was the computer Marie had mentioned, a new model set dead center on a heavy mahogany desk. Glass-fronted bookcases held law books and a few old novels of the manly-thriller variety.

  And there was a television as well, not as large as the one in the sitting room, but new and expensive and sitting atop its own media cabinet with a DVD and a Blu-ray player. There were no DVDs visible, however, so she tried a drawer in the cabinet. It held a small collection of action thrillers, similar in nature to the novels on the shelves. The next drawer was locked. She jiggled it, frustrated, then went to the desk and began a methodical search through the drawers.

  The little key was in the back of the center compartment, behind the paper clips and elastic bands. She took it over to the media cabinet and opened the locked drawer with an easy click.

  Melody stared down at the DVDs, neatly aligned, spine up. She reached out a finger to touch them, then made a face and drew it back.

  Instead, she went to the door and called out, “Boss. You’d better come have a look at this.”

  She locked the shop door from the inside and switched off the lights. Although the streetlamps had come on half an hour ago, it was not yet officially closing, and she saw a few passersby peer curiously through the glass.

  Somehow she had got through the day, serving customers with a face that felt stiff from her manufactured smile. She’d even managed to chat with a few of the regulars, girls in the casts of nearby West End shows, taking breaks between the matinees and evening performances. But as the afternoon wore on, she felt herself stretching thinner and thinner, like an elastic band near to breaking, and now even the passing glance of a shopper through the darkened glass made her feel exposed, her knees suddenly weak as jelly.

  Moving away from the window, she felt for a solid wall and leaned against it, trembling. The memories she’d held at bay all that day came at her in a rush that left her gasping, hunched over with her arms wrapped protectively across her stomach.

  Why had she gone back to Crystal Palace when every instinct had told her it was a mistake? She’d thought she was prepared to face the past, but she’d never expected to see him. She had recognized him instantly, as if fifteen years had collapsed into an instant. Then he turned, his glance passing over her, and there had been no hint of recognition in his eyes.

  He had never really looked at her, she realized, that day when he had so casually torn her life to shreds. Had he been thinking about his golf game? His next seduction? The favor he was doing for one of his cronies?

  Numb with shock, her white-knuckled hand clenched round the stem of her wineglass, she’d watched him as he tried to chat up a twenty-something girl with bleached hair and a little muffin roll between her T-shirt and her jeans, seen the girl reject him with a shrug.

  Scowling, he’d watched the girl walk away. Then, his attention drawn to some commotion on the band’s little stage, he’d slammed his glass on the bar and pushed through the crush of punters until he reached the band. He shouted something she didn’t catch, but she could see that neither the words nor the object of his tirade meant anything to him, other than a way of venting his temper over the girl’s rejection.

  Just as she had meant nothing to him, on that long-ago day.

  The anger had rolled through her then, cold and sharp and diamond hard, and she moved instinctively and without any thought of the consequences. She’d slid up next to him when he returned to the bar, bumping him, spilling a bit of wine on his trousers and brushing at it with a flustered apology—old tricks learned in Paris, automatic as breathing.

  And he’d taken the bait. Oh, he’d taken the bait. She hadn’t remembered his name. When he’d said, “Call me John,” she’d fought a wild desire to laugh. How perfect. How bloody perfect.

  So she’d flirted, let him buy her a drink, thinking she’d get him going until he was sure he’d made a conquest, then make the old powder her nose excuse and walk out, leaving him high and dry. Her bit of playacting had kept her mind off the other temptation, the one she knew she mustn’t give in to. Not that night, not now, not with him in the bar.

  But by the time he’d whispered in her ear that he knew a little place, she’d had one glass of wine too many and she was riding a reckless adrenaline high. So she kept up the game, thinking she’d tell him the truth at the last minute—high and dry wouldn’t be the half of it, then.

  She’d walked through the fog with him to the seedy hotel, waited in the dark for him to let her in the basement fire door as if she were the commonest whore. And once in the room, when he’d let her know what he wanted, she’d gone along with that, too, knowing he’d suggested a humiliation more perfect than anything she might have invented. Too perfect.

  She clutched herself tighter, trying to still the shaking in her hands.

  How could she have done such a thing? How could she, after everything she’d been through?

  The flush of shame brought nausea so intense she staggered and almost fell. Then she lurched to the back of the shop, one hand over her mouth, the other grabbing the edges of display counters as if they were railings in a rough sea, all the while the smell of that horrid room, and the smell of him, filling her nostrils.

  When she reached the toilet cubicle in the back of the shop, she fell to her knees, her forehead against the porcelain, and vomited until there was nothing left but dry heaves.

  And still a tiny voice whispered in her head that it had served the bastard right.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The palace and the grounds became the world’s first theme park offering education, entertainment, a rollercoaster, cricket matches, and even 20 F.A. Cup Finals between 1895–1914.

  —www.bbc.co.uk

  Melody had watched as Gemma, her lips quirked in distaste, ran a gloved finger over the videos. Gemma pulled one out, frowned, put it back, scanned another. “Could be worse,” she said. “They all seem to be pretty soft core. Nothing violent—just a little male-bondage fantasy. We’ll have someone run through the lot to make sure that’s all there is to them.”

  “Shara?” Melody suggested.

  “I thought you were making an effort to be mates with Shara.” Gemma flashed Melody a wicked grin.

  “She was a bit difficult today, at the hotel. Serves her right. And, besides, I don’t want to watch them,” Melody added.

  “No. Neither do I,” Gemma admitted. “Shara it is.”

  Melody had fetched an evidence bag for the DVDs from the boot of her car, and after a last word with Marie Daeley, who was still waiting for the computer boffins, they headed back to Brixton. Night had fallen while they were in the house, but unlike the previous evening, it was clear, and as Melody drove north she could see the lights of the city spread below her.

  “Anything interesting upstairs?” she asked Gemma.

  “Definitely separate bedrooms. And Marie was right about the color-coordinated clothing in the wardrobes. He even had little day-of-the-week tags pinned to hers.”

  “Another coping tactic? Or was he just obsessively controlling?”

  Gemma shrugged. “In that case, why was he the one who fancied being tied up?”

  “I wonder how often he indulged?” Melody mused as they joined the long queue of red tail lamps snaking downhill. “According to Reg at the Stag, Arnott liked to hook up with the occasional divorcée looking for a good time. It seems like he’d be taking a big risk of being told to bugger off—if
not getting a slap in the face—if he suggested that bit of hanky-panky to your average suburban divorcée. And he wasn’t prepared with gear.”

  “Maybe he splurged on a professional and got more than he bargained for.”

  Melody tapped a finger on the steering wheel, shaking her head. “He’d have had no trouble finding a call girl to cater to his tastes in the city. But at the White Stag? A call girl of any sort seems unlikely. And why would a pro tie him up and strangle him?”

  “Bad for repeat business,” agreed Gemma, straight-faced. Then she added, “We’d better have the SOCOs take a look at his car tomorrow, though. He might have kept a stash of something more appropriate than belts and neckties. Maybe the opportunity to access it just didn’t come up last night. He didn’t drive because he’d been drinking—”

  “And probably because he didn’t want his car connected to the hotel,” Melody broke in.

  “Right. And it could have been a bit awkward to suggest to his new lady friend that they walk down to his house and retrieve his bondage gear before going to the hotel.”

  “A wee bit, yes,” Melody agreed, and they drove the rest of the way in silence, mulling it over.

  They dropped the DVDs off in Brixton, with a note asking Shara to review them in the morning, then drove on to Notting Hill. When they reached Gemma’s house, they agreed they’d meet at the station at nine the following morning, driving separate cars as the day’s interviews might take them in different directions. Gemma invited Melody in, but it was perfunctory. It had been a long day and Melody was sure that Gemma wanted to spend time with Duncan and the kids. She said good night and drove the mile to her own flat.

  Melody loved the old mansion block of flats near the top of Kensington Park Road, but she’d lately begun to find the flat itself confining. She could see the upper end of Portobello Road from her sitting room windows, but that was the extent of her access to the outside. Not a great loss on a cold night in January, but the previous autumn she’d begun to crave contact with things green and growing.